Xandy Mancao’s catalytic converter was stolen from her 2007 Toyota Prius on Wednesday in Highland Park. She is worried about replacing it because she thinks it could happen again. Her boyfriend, who also owns a Prius, had his conmverter stolen that same night. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/Southern California News Group)

A heap of stolen catalytic converters recovered by the Los Angeles Police Department last year. The LAPD Catalytic Converter Task Force, which operated out of the Devonshire Division in the San Fernando Valley, ended in October. Thefts have spiked in other parts of L.A. and Southern California since then, as thieves move east and south. (Photo from Sept. 17, 2015. Photo by John McCoy/Southern California News Group)

A wire hangs where a catalytic converter was stolen from Xandy Mancao’s 2007 Toyota Prius on Wednesday in Highland Park. She is worried about replacing it because she thinks it could happen again. Her boyfriend, who also owns a Prius, had his conmverter stolen that same night. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/Southern California News Group)

On the morning of May 31, Peter Boada had a hankering for some doughnuts.

He jumped into his 2007 Toyota Prius and started it up, but the normally quiet hybrid sedan sounded like a race car on the NASCAR circuit. Overnight, thieves had sawed off the catalytic converter, leaving no functioning exhaust system.

“The thought occurred to him, ‘if they took mine, they probably took yours, too,’ ” said his girlfriend, Xandy Mancao, 31. Boada, 30, was exactly right. When Mancao rushed out to her car — also a 2007 Prius and also parked in front of their apartment — she was greeted by the same deafening sound as she engaged the ignition switch — a roar echoing through Highland Park where they live, and a sound becoming increasingly more common in other parts of southeast Los Angeles and the west San Gabriel Valley during the past eight months.

Catalytic converter thefts spreading

A Los Angeles Police Department task force operating out of the Devonshire Division in the San Fernando Valley from March through October 2015 resulted in arrests of 10 bands of thieves, some with four people in each, as well as the take-down of a scrap dealer in Pacoima who was selling the stolen devices to an extraction company in Texas, said Sgt. Pablo Monterrosa, who participated in the task force.

While the number of catalytic converter thefts was 500 in 2014, there were 300 in the first three months of 2015 alone. That rate has since slowed to about 100 or more a year for the San Fernando Valley, he estimated.

However, by mid-October and throughout November, residents of Silverlake, Echo Park, Glassel Park and Eagle Rock reported a rash of thefts, according to social media posts, bloggers and chat rooms. The LAPD’s Northeast Division reported nine converters all stolen out of Toyota Prius models during that time.

The thieves are spreading to other areas where the police aren’t paying as close attention to this crime because of stretched resources, he said. “Now, unfortunately, we don’t have the manpower and time to go after them in these other locations,” Monterrosa said.

“Over the past couple of years, everyone is experiencing spikes in catalytic converter thefts. You have people who deal in these things that go from location to location and then they leave. It is transitory,” said LAPD Detective Carmine Sasso.

What is a catalytic converter worth?

Thefts of catalytic converters can fetch thieves $100 to $160 each — easy paydays of more than $1,000 a night when multiplied by several stolen converters. Unscrupulous scrap metals dealers then extract the precious metals within the device that can sell for more than $1,000 per ounce on the spot market.

Platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold are the most common metals found in these devices.

Car owners feel the sting when forced to cough up between $1,000 and $3,000 for new converters and exhaust system repairs. Even with comprehensive insurance, deductibles can still result in $500 to $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses.

“Even if you have to take a hit for $1,000, that is a lot of money for anybody,” sympathizes Monterrosa.

The dark side of recycling

Though recycling is a common and encouraged practice in Southern California, a recycling market with easy, promising payouts is attractive to would-be thieves. Auto parts are recycled and made into other consumer products but at a deep cost to middle-class Southern Californians.

“The whole world gets into recycling but this brings its dark shade of crime,” said Sgt. Jerry Johnson with the Alhambra Police Department.

One internet ad from an online scrap metal dealer with no address urges potential customers to send pictures of the catalytic converters and they’ll send an estimate and a mailing address. “Wanted Dead or Alive Catalytic Converters,” reads the site, offering “Reward of up to $200 each.” The site explains: “We Pay You the Highest Price for the Precious Metals Inside: Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium. It’s that easy!”

Thefts hitting Alhambra, Silverlake, Eagle Rock

Alhambra experienced eight catalytic converter thefts in May, Johnson said. So far this year, the city has had 16 thefts. Of the eight in May: four were Honda Accords; two were Honda Elements and two were Toyota Camrys, he said.

Each vehicle was parked on a residential street, where crews have easy access and don’t have to break into a garage or home.

Thefts have occurred in Eagle Rock in April, Silverlake in March, Lake Balboa in April and Glassel Park in May, according to detailed comments on blogs created specifically for victims to share their frustrations about a lack of police help and large repair bills.

Priuses are new targets

A mechanic said last October he replaced the catalytic converters on four Priuses that converter theives had hit. Replacement costs more than $2,400 per car, including parts and labor, he wrote on a chat room site. Because Toyotas seem to be the newest target, mechanics are having difficulties getting the parts because they are out of stock or back-ordered, Mancao said.

Older model Toyotas may be targeted by thieves because of the easy access to the devices, experts said. Others said these may contain more of the precious metals than those on other makes and models. “They preferred Hondas and Toyotas,” Monterrosa said.

“The most common one is the Toyota Prius, but when they come in, I can’t get the converters. They have to go to the dealers,” said Kirk, a mechanic at Advanced Mufflers in Pasadena.

Another model popular among catalytic converter thieves is the Honda Element, which sits high off the street and makes for easier access. “Every day is a mystery for me in the morning: Is my catalytic converter stolen or not?” wrote Tony of Northeast Los Angeles on a blog site.

Organized crews scour neighborhoods

Some thieves operate as a team, using walkie-talkies to communicate between the thief stealing the catalytic converter with a battery-powered saw in hand and a mechanic’s creeper used to quickly slide underneath the parked car, and those standing watch at the top of the street, he said. One thief used a minivan with a secret compartment in the floorboard to hide the stolen devices.

Mancao wished her neighbor, who saw someone under her car in the middle of the night, would have called police. “She didn’t do anything. She just watched them.”

She’s hoping to pay only $800 for a used converter. But since her car was not operable, the battery died. She figures she’ll be out $1,000 total for the converter and battery because she does not have comprehensive (theft) insurance.

Is early release of prisoners to blame?

In the LAPD Harbor Division, near Wilmington, where several scrap yards are located, the police are seeing one to two catalytic converter thefts per week, said Detective Sasso, Harbor Area Auto Coordinator.

He blames Prop. 47, the ballot measure that reduces charges for some nonviolent drug and property crimes. Sasso says criminals on the street are savvy about what crimes will get longer sentences. He says these thefts are often reduced to misdemeanors by the Los Angeles City Attorney.

The ballot measure has also reduced the number of inmates from state prisons by more than 4,500, putting more petty thieves on the streets, he said.

“Prop. 47 has had a huge impact on property crimes,” Sasso said. “They know they get less time for a property crime. It is a lot less risk to them than putting a gun in someone’s face.”

Solutions include clamps or garages

Solutions such as parking in a garage or a lighted carport are not practical for residents of Los Angeles neighborhoods with apartments, small homes and narrow streets.

Some mechanics sell a clamp or a lock for the catalytic converter. But Karen Valenti, owner of North Hollywood Discount Auto Repair, wonders if a thief can cut through that cable or snap the clamp off.

Valenti repairs at least one missing catalytic converter per week in her shop. She believes the thefts go up when prisoners are released back into the neighborhoods. “They learn in jail how to steal catalytic converters so then someone else is out and they start doing it,” she said.

Mancao, who works in downtown L.A. in the fashion industry, has been carpooling with friends or taking the Gold Line. But when she gets the money, she’ll have her Toyota Prius repaired. She only wishes there’s a guarantee it won’t happen again.

“I might put a note under my car that says ‘bad karma,’ you know, as a joke. That might deter someone,” she said.

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.

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